They are talking about their innovation capabilities (that is, how to assess the promise of ideas that they have in the pipeline, their ability to compete, where they need to allocate new resources to innovation).

They are talking about their innovation results (that is, they’re talking about what sorts of return they have on their innovation investment. Did they see new growth or generate new efficiencies?)

Some people think that you should choose one or the other type of metric, but really you need to be watching both in order to predictably (and continuously) innovate. Here are a few examples of companies that measured their innovation inputs and outputs.

In 2009, the White House launched the SAVE awards, which asked for efficiency ideas that would save the government and tax payers money. The collected more than 100,000 ideas (they also were able to report on some outputs: millions of dollars of savings).